{"id":356953,"date":"2018-04-16T04:15:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T03:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/modernization-is-media-code-for-military-build-up-2\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T04:15:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T03:15:54","slug":"modernization-is-media-code-for-military-build-up-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/modernization-is-media-code-for-military-build-up-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Modernization\u2019 is Media Code for Military Build-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_101300\" style=\"width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-101300\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-12-at-4.32.43-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"369\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by DVIDSHUB | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>One of the most effective rhetorical tools in normalizing massive military budgets is to treat spending billions \u2014 and sometimes trillions \u2014 of dollars as something one has to do in order to be \u201cmodern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cModernization\u201d is, after all, an attractive label. Who doesn\u2019t want to be <em>modern<\/em>? Consider just a few examples from recent reporting on military spending.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Department of Energy said the money was needed to modernize and restore the country\u2019s nuclear weapons complex,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-budget-defense\/trump-proposes-bigger-budget-for-pentagon-nuclear-arsenal-idUSKBN1FW1YL\">Reuters reported<\/a>of a $15 billion, one-year budget request for nuke spending.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPentagon Budget Seeks Billions for Modernizing Nuclear Arsenal, Missile Defense,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/373464-pentagon-budget-request-includes-billions-for-nuclear-modernization-missile\"><em>The Hill <\/em>mumbled<\/a>about a related $37 billion request.<\/p>\n<p>The Army, meanwhile, will get many billions more \u201cas the service struggles to modernize while simultaneously fighting wars in current conflicts,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/blog\/the-buzz\/can-the-army-get-ready-war-russia-china-fight-terror-too-24549\">wrote the <em>National Interest<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cU.S. nuclear policy is aimed at deterring Russia,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/01\/europe\/putin-russia-missile-intl\/index.html\">CNN explained<\/a>, \u201cthrough the modernization of the U.S. arsenal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finally, notes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-lockheed-f35\/u-s-f-35-fighter-modernization-could-cost-16-billion-through-2024-idUSKCN1GK02M\">a Reuters headline<\/a>on the world\u2019s most expensive (and still not operational) fighter plane, the \u201cF-35 Fighter Modernization Could Cost $16 Billion Through 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other variations include the verbs \u201coverhaul\u201d or \u201crebuild.\u201d The idea is that something has fallen into disrepair and simply needs to be put back together.<\/p>\n<p>How vast new expenditures on weapons that can already end civilization can be justified in either&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/04\/13\/modernization-is-media-code-for-military-build-up\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by DVIDSHUB | CC BY 2.0 One of the most effective rhetorical tools in normalizing massive military budgets is to treat spending billions \u2014 and sometimes trillions \u2014 of dollars as something one has to do in order to be \u201cmodern.\u201d \u201cModernization\u201d is, after all, an attractive label. Who doesn\u2019t want to be modern? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-356953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}